The Top 10 Free Canadian Directories Ranked By Rocketeer the SEO Hero

Canada is a BIG place. In fact, it’s the second largest country in the entire world! Across Canada’s huge landscape, there are a lot of businesses that are all competing with one another to get your attention. Aside from all the big businesses, Canada alone has over a million small businesses and each of them are competing with other businesses to get your attention. But if Canada is considered big, then the internet should be considered MASSIVE! With over one billion known websites on the internet to date, it’s a lot of work to consistently get your businesses product or services found online, let alone just getting found in Canada. But wouldn’t it be great if there was some way you could just focus on getting your business found online, which would, in turn, get people to find where your businesses physical location is along with other information like your store hours, phone number, directions, and reviews? Well, keep reading because Rocketeer the SEO Hero is about to introduce you and your online business to the world of online directories!

What Are Online Directories?

The short and simple version? Online Directories are like the phone books of the internet, only a lot more powerful since they usually show your businesses location on an interactive map along with your hours, phone number, pictures, online reviews and can even give people directions to your business all with the click of a button. Another benefit of being in online directories is if you have a website for your business then linking directories to your site will help boost your SEO rankings but Rocketeer the SEO Hero will get into that later.

Why Should My Business Be In Online Directories Even If I Don’t Have A Website For My Business?

If you don’t have a website for your business then Directories are a great place to start working away at getting your business found
on search engines. Getting your business in websites like Google maps or yellow pages usually show up first in search results because these sites have done all the SEO work for you in order to rank high when people make a search. An example of this can be seen to the right:

When I typed in “Plumbing Company Hamilton” you can see that Hy-Pro Plumbing has worked very hard to get their site up to the top of the search results for this search term, but Google shows local Google Maps results first and Wentworth Plumbing is technically the first result seen so they will get the most clicks.

Why Should My Business Be In Online Directories If I Already Have A Website For My Business?

If you do have a website for your business, then Directories become even more important to you & your business! Every directory that let you add a link back to your businesses site helps boost your site’s SEO search rankings just a little higher each time, hence why it’s better to be in more directories than just Google Maps. The reason for this is because one of the biggest factors in how a site should rank in search engines is how many websites are linking to your site. This may seem strange to you, but the reason this is is because search engines like Google know that if people like the content your site is putting out, then people will probably link to your site because it’s interesting and want others to read it, so Google and other search engines will reward your sites if you have other sites link to you. In technical terms, we call those “Backlinks”. Now without further ado, here are the Top 10 Canadian Directories ranked by Rocketeer The SEO Hero:

It’s a little bit funny, but in order to get your local business on Google Maps you need to create a Google My Business location and get that verified, then your business will appear on Google Maps. This is the absolute best directory to get your business into to become an SEO Hero. In order to verify that your business is really there, Google will send the business address a postcard with a verification code, or Google will get you to do some other form of business verification to ensure that the location really does exist. This may seem like a bit of a waste, but trust Rocketeer since he is the SEO Hero after all.

Say what you will about Bing, but Bing Places is a great, free Canadian directory that’s simple enough to get listed on. The verification process is very similar to Google My Businesses verification process where a postcard will be sent to a business location to verify that it’s really at that location.

That’s right, Canada’s very own Government has their own directory and, once verified, you’ll be added into in all sorts of different directories across Canada. This is a great site for getting your websites link into.

Yellow Pages is one of the highest ranking and most visited Directories in the world. Getting your Business up on Yellow Pages will get your business appearing high up in search results as Yellow Pages has invested quite a lot of time into the SEO rankings of their site.

Yelp is a directory that not only will get you high up in search results but will also let you manage the reviews people give your business so you can understand what your customers like and don’t like about your store. Yelp is the most used site when it comes to reviewing a local business.

This site isn’t as well known as those other higher directories, but don’t let that discourage you as Profile Canada is one of the strongest Canadian backlinks you can get, and it’s one of the easiest directories to get verified in too! Getting your business listed should take less than 5 minutes so why not get to it now?

Dmoz.org is a very respected and long running directory, and because of its lengthy existence on the internet it’s accumulated a LOT of local businesses from around the world over the years. Similar to how Wikipedia works, dmoz is run by volunteer Editors who want to help organize the internet’s businesses and when you submit your business, a volunteer will have to review and approve your business.

Don’t be fooled by the retro look of this site as this site is a great high authority link that you can link back to your businesses site as a backlink. The verification process is simple -just fill out the “add your business” form and then submit it!

Hotfrog is a directory that really makes it easy to add new business listings and manage them. You can add multiple businesses and locations under the same admin account, each with the option for different links, all for free.

Nearest is a newer directory to enter the game. It’s a bit of a combination between a social network and a business directory where people can make accounts and sign up to find local events, deals and other local products/services.

These are the top 10 Canadian directories that will help people to find your business. Rocketeer the SEO Hero has more blogs that help you to become your own SEO Hero so what are you waiting for? Get your SEO Hero Training now!